What are the early returns on MLB instant replay?

Jul. 21, 2014
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White Sox second baseman Leury Garcia (28) makes the tag but Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez (23) is called safe at third base by umpire Gary Cederstrom. The call was overturned after a review of the play. / Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

Baseball's expanded replay program was less than a week old when Commissioner Bud Selig got a phone call.

"Did you see the games today?" asked former manager Tony LaRussa, who at the time was part of the major league staff implementing the new system. "There were six replays today. We got them all right."

That's been the mantra and the rationale from the beginning: Get the call right.

The consensus midway through the first season of using replay for much more than disputed home runs is that baseball got - or at least is getting - it right.

The system itself remains under constant review, though Selig says, "We had no right to expect it would be this good this fast. It could use some tweaking, but I couldn't be happier."

Umpires' calls are being challenged by managers slightly less than once every two games. Just more than half of the calls are being reversed. And the average time of review has gradually declined to less than two minutes.

"They prepared us that there might be a hiccup or two and to kind of bear with it," says Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona. "And I think they're constantly trying to see how they can make it better. I think it's been pretty good."

Managers had challenged 606 calls in heading into the All-Star break - that's once every 2.35 games. Of those, 52% (318) were overturned.

Joe Torre, Major League Baseball's executive vice president of baseball operations, cites a 47.7% overturn rate, but that includes reviews initiated by umpires, mostly the home run disputes.

One statistic not included in the detailed data MLB keeps is how often a manager walks onto the field to indicate he might want to challenge, then changes his mind during the 30 seconds or so he is informally given to await a signal from his own video reviewer as to whether the call is worth disputing.

Torre says adding those close calls - which the team is admitting the umpire got right - would bring the overturn rate down to 21 or 22%.

The process hardly has been perfect, nor without its critics.

It has to MLB altering the transfer rule - determining the difference between a fielder not making a catch or losing control of the ball after taking it out of his glove. Replays also have been in the middle of ongoing clarification of a new rule designed to eliminate home-plate collisions between catchers and baserunners.

"I didn't like it in the beginning, and I don't like it now," says Todd Frazier, the Cincinnati Reds All-Star third baseman whose team has been successful on three of its 12 challenges. Only the St. Louis Cardinals' 14% success rate is worse. By comparison, Miami Marlins manager Mike Redmond has been the most effective user of replay, getting 14 of 17 (82%) challenges overturned.

"I know it's a learning experience," Frazier says. "But if they're going to show it on the Jumbotron and you see a guy is blatantly out or blatantly safe and it doesn't get overturned, it's very frustrating."

Much of the frustration expressed has been about feedback - not knowing for sure the reasons for a ruling from the command center. Managers regularly communicate with the MLB offices, and players can get feedback after the fact even on specific plays, but that doesn't alleviate the immediate anger.

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Covering all angles

Tony Clark, executive director of the players' union, fields players' complaints just as Torre hears from managers. Clark has spent time in the Replay Operations Center, talking to umpires and watching the process.

"What the ROC sees oftentimes is different than what's shown on the scoreboard," Clark says. "One angle may look like the call should be this way, and that may be the angle that everyone sees on the scoreboard. But there may be an angle that (fans in the stadium) haven't seen."

All camera angles are immediately available to the ROC as well as each team's video coordinator sitting at a console in the clubhouse.

It's up to the team's coordinator to quickly select the angles to help determine whether a review is prudent.

That's one reason the rate of overturned calls has risen slightly through the season. Teams are becoming more adept at making those decisions and not wasting their two challenges a game.

"Slowly but surely, the cooperation between baseball, the players and umpires has led to the rough edges being smoothed out," Clark says.

The umpiring crews who rotate through the video center in Manhattan, N.Y., have three options: overturning a call, confirming it as correct or ruling it stands, meaning the video evidence wasn't clear enough to merit changing the call. At that point, further on-field arguments result in automatic ejection.

There have been more stands than confirmed (192 to 153), and the difficulty of those calls is indicated by the average 2:22 review time when stands is the ruling, compared with 1:22 for those confirmed and the 1:50 average overall.

Torre says the pace of games, which was probably the most widely expressed concern when the system was announced, could be improved by streamlining the decision process for managers.

"Some of the managers have abbreviated it by stepping out of the dugout just to indicate he may challenge while waiting for the bench coach to tell him," says Torre, who's against the NFL's red flags thrown by coaches.

"In certain cities we'd have a whole laundry bag coming on the field," he says. "We're certainly not looking forward to that happening. We will be looking at that to find a way that's comfortable but not as time-consuming."

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New umpires doing fine

A side effect of the new system has been the need for more umpires. Two four-man crews were added to account for the two crews rotating through the command center at any point.

Twelve umpires have made their major league debuts this year. That's compared with four last year and is the most since 1999, when 17 debuted after mass resignations in the midst of a labor dispute.

Minor league umpires, who serve apprenticeships by filling in when MLB umps take vacation, have been pressed into added service this year because of injuries on the major league staff.

Players and managers, though seldom willing to talk for attribution for fear of harming their relationship with umpires, have wondered if the rookies have caused a deterioration in the overall quality of umpiring.

Data doesn't back that up.

The umpire with the most calls overturned is Seth Buckminster, a fill-in who has since returned to his International League staff after 11 reversals. But among the next six umps with the most reversals, four have worked more than 1,600 major league games.

Nor are the newcomers affecting the rest of the game.

Baseballsavant.com tracks umpires' ball and strike calls against baseball's electronic pitch-tracking system, and shows the percentage of pitches in the strike zone each ump calls balls and pitches out of the zone he calls strikes. One umpire who made his debut this year ranks in the top 10 of percentage of missed calls on either list.

Expanded replay clearly has changed the game.

The whole dynamic of the umpire-manager relationship has changed. Nearly extinct are the dirt-kicking, vein-popping tirades that made the likes of Billy Martin and Earl Weaver part of the game's fabric.

Players and managers actually are being ejected from games at a higher rate than a year ago, but 15 only of the 123 ejections this season have been related to calls handled through replay.

Former Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox, who goes into the Hall of Fame later this month, can feel pretty safe about his all-time record 161 career ejections now that the calmer, friendlier era is in place.

"I actually miss it sometimes," says Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter, who finds himself sauntering out toward an umpire on a close play, allowing time for his man at the clubhouse video center to relay a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on whether it's worth challenging the play.

There stand the manager and ump - as awkwardly as strangers on an elevator.

As often as not, the manager gets the word that the call was correct - or was at least so close there's not enough definitive evidence to overturn it - then heads back to the dugout.

"I try to use that to further my relations with the umpires," says Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon. "When I get the word (not to challenge), I say, 'Hey, man, that was a helluva call.'"